


the real monsters

by snapchattingnct



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Monsters Inc. Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapchattingnct/pseuds/snapchattingnct
Summary: He was taught that humans should be afraid of monsters like him. But as he grew older, Mark came to realize that humans were monsters in their own way too, much more frightening than he could have been, even as the top scarer in the world.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 17
Kudos: 162





	the real monsters

**Author's Note:**

> For PDF, prompt #071: a monster inc. au 
> 
> Since Monster Inc. is Haechan's favorite movie (apparently at least lol), I hope that I managed to give this prompt some justice with what I managed to pull together in this fic. What I ended up writing was totally different than the outline that I had planned for this fic originally, but I think I'm a lot happier with it this way. I honestly had so much trouble writing this fic, it was unreal. The writer's block was very much legit with this piece. I actually have three different versions of the opening scene to this fic... I just couldn't decide how I wanted this story to really go. 
> 
> All in all though, I hope that you'll enjoy it~
> 
> Big thanks to the PDF mods for dealing with me and my writer's block. You guys are amazing. Thank you to the prompter for giving me a chance to dive into this monster inc. au. 
> 
> Unbeated, so please excuse any mistakes or errors I may have overlooked.
> 
> 2/23/21: Still unbetaed, but I decided to take it out of the fest collection in order to share it with everyone~ It's been a while since i've written this and I was nervous about reveals since I wasn't as proud of this back then. But now, I kinda am? Lol Plus the fest hasn't done the fic reveal yet (I don't know if it ever will) so I just went ahead and "reposted" again. Enjoy!

The dreams were always the same whenever he would close his eyes— memories actually. 

_Tiny hands pushing the shirts and jackets to the side, Mark stepped out from the closet, eyes widened as he took in his surroundings. It was dark out, way too late for him to be awake, but he was anyways. Despite it being in the dead of winter, he had expected the room to be stiflingly hot, just like his own bedroom with the heater on full blast, but it wasn’t. It didn’t even seem like the house had central heating._

_It was so cold that he saw his breath in the air each time he breathed. With a shiver, Mark took another step further out from the closet and he nearly jumped out of his skin when his toe brushed past something. Gasping, he looked down at the item that he just touched, it was only a wooden alphabet block, the red letter H on each side of the block nearly worn out. Tentatively pushing it to the side and out of the way with his foot, Mark drew in a breath of relief._

_Drawing his eyes back up, he glanced around at the room_ _—_ _it looked nothing like what the textbooks said it would look like. Books and toys were scattered everywhere, tables and shelves were upturned and knocked over, like a tornado just tore through the room. The longer that he stood there, Mark realized how badly it smelled. It stunk even worse than his cousin Johnny’s gym socks after training. It smelled like the men’s bathroom plus the laundry room._

_‘Gross,’ he thought as he pinched his nose, hoping to block out the scent. But it was no use. Even then, the foul scent still came through._

_He didn’t know how anyone was still fully breathing and alive after breathing in such polluted air like this. One glance at the window said that whoever lived here didn’t even bother to vent the place out like his dad would do sometimes when he would burn the dinner and not want his mom to find out._

_Holding his breath as best as he could, Mark continued on. He pushed aside every article of dirty clothing or broken toys that blocked his path, until he reached the end of the bedpost._

_Pushing his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose, he squinted at the bed before him, searching for the lump of a body tangled within the sheets. His teachers and all the videos that they have shown him said that the humans would be sleeping peacefully until he would come to scare them. But the longer he stared at the dark sheets, Mark didn’t find anything._

_Confused, he took another step forward, a hand reaching out towards the bed. They told him that it was dangerous for him to come in direct contact with a human, but he didn’t care, because how could a human harm him. His dad was the top scarer in their world and he was never harmed at work, so in turn he shouldn’t either._

_That didn’t stop his heart from literally jumping into his throat though when a warm hand wrapped itself around his wrist, holding it tight. He would have screamed out loud if it hadn’t been for the other hand that clamped over his mouth, muffling his screams._

_“You can’t scream!” A shaky voice hissed at him, sounding more afraid than threatening. “He’ll hear you and he’ll come for us.”_

_“What?” Mark mumbled, eyes completely wide open. His heart stopped beating, he was sure because an actual human was touching him._

_The human immediately shushed him, pressing their palm harder against his mouth._

_Before he could gather his thoughts and ask another question, somewhere downstairs, glass shattering against the floor and a string of profanities was heard. Those vugar words echoed up the stairs as heavy footsteps began to pound on them, old wood creaking painfully under it._

_Breath hitching, he felt the hand covering his mouth shake. It shook so hard that it fell off of his face completely a couple seconds later as the human muttered, “No, no. Not yet. Not again.”_

_Mark watched as the human backed away, hiccuping as a sob wrecked through their body. It wasn’t until when they stepped under the light of the moon that Mark got a good look at what the human looked like._

_The human was a boy, around his age, definitely no more than a couple years older than him. The longer that he stared at the boy though, Mark realized that the boy was definitely younger than him for sure if his scrawny appearance had anything to go by. Actually, the boy was far too small and skinny for his age. Kids around his age still had their baby fat, but the boy before him had nothing. He was nothing but fragile with pointy bones poking through his ashen skin._

_His hair was long and shaggy, tangled up in a bunch of knots. If his mom had been here, she surely would have given the boy a long and hard lecture before shoving him under the shower-head to fix his hair properly. It seemed like the boy had attempted to give himself a haircut at some point in time, but he had done a terrible job. Even from a distance, Mark could still see all the split ends and the choppy, uneven cuts._

_His eyes were honey in color but there was no warmth to them. They were void of life and empty, so empty that it stirred a shiver up his spine as he continued to stare into them. Mark didn’t think that he had come face to face with anyone like that before, not even with all the monsters in his life. None of them shook him to his very core like the boy in front of him._

_An empty glass bottle shattered against the bedroom’s door, effectively shaking him out of his daze. Glancing at the door with wide eyes, with his heart in his throat again, Mark turned around to face the door. Like the boy had done earlier, Mark covered the boy’s trembling lips with his hands, muffling his sounds as best as he could. Just before the doorknob turned, Mark pushed them under the messy bed, eyes watering as the pungent smell reached his nose again._

_It smelled like something literally died underneath the bed. He didn’t have much time to be bothered by the terrible smell because the bedroom door slammed open. Mark swore that he heard wood splintering and breaking as it hit the wall from the force it was thrown open._

_The boy beside him was quiet, not a single sound peeping from him, but he was shaking so bad. His entire body shook like a mouse being backed up in a corner, hunted by a house-cat. The longer the seconds passed though, the more Mark saw the resemblance. They were exactly like a mouse backed up into the corner with the way that they were hiding out under the bed at the moment._

_Pulling the boy close to him, Mark gave his shoulder a small squeeze, trying to comfort him as best as he could. He felt something wet drip onto his hands and Mark realized that he boy was crying, sobbing actually. Heart pounding in his chest, Mark pulled him closer, and hugged him into his chest. He hated hugs, but his mom always taught him to hug people that were sad or scared. She said it would make them feel better._

_He was about to whisper some comforting words to him when the bedframe shook above them as the intruder yanked the comforter off the bed, “Little boy, where are you? Daddy’s home.”_

_When the man didn’t find what he was searching for, he dropped to the floor and ripped the bed skirt up, hands blinding reaching out underneath the bed. As he continued to yell into the darkness, hands groping for the younger boy, Mark blanched at how disgustingly intoxicated he was. The further the man reached and the closer his filthy hands reached them, Mark made a split second decision and pushed the boy behind him._

_“Don’t come out from under here until I come back for you, okay?” Mark whispered, staring deep into the boy’s eyes._

_“What?” The boy stuttered out, eyes growing incredibly wide. With a fierce shake of his head, he tugged at his arm, pulling him back. “No! You can’t go out there, he’ll hurt you!”_

_“I’ll be okay.” Mark told him, pushing him further under the bed. Smiling at the boy, he added, “Remember, don’t come out until I come back and get you, okay?”_

_Not bothering to hear what else the boy had to say, Mark dived out from underneath the bed, startling the drunk man before him._

_“You are not Donghyuck,” the man slurred out, stumbling on his two feet as he stood up._

_‘Oh, so Donghyuck was the young boy’s name.’ Mark thought as he glanced back under the bed for a moment. But then turning back to face Donghyuck’s so called father, Mark glared at the man. It didn’t take much for him to put one and one together. With his drinking addiction, the man was the reason that Donghyuck was the way that he was._

_As he stepped forward to push him aside, Mark bared his teeth, growling at him. There was no way in hell that Mark was going to let the man lay another hand on Donghyuck. Feeling a surge of anger rising up within him, catching on fire, Mark felt his body shifting on command. Canines lengthening until they were sharp fangs, he crouched back down to the ground, this time on all fours._

_Jaws snapping at the man, Mark continued to growl. Each time that Donghyuck’s father inched closer to the bed, Mark would growl even louder._

_“Ah, you fucking stupid mutt.” Donghyuck’s father shouted, swatting at the tip of his nose, a poor attempt to push him to the side. Given how much he had drunk for the night, the man’s hand and eye coordination was way off. His words were all jumbled together too, but Mark got most of what he was trying to say anyways. “Where the hell did you even come from? Did that stupid boy let you inside again? I told him I’ll beat his ass if he invites another stray into the house. There’s barely enough food to feed him, much less another greedy mouth.”_

_The flames within his heart continued to rise to new heights, nearly enveloping him whole until his vision was nothing but the color red. Mark felt his bones shifting beneath his skin, breaking and then rebuilding themselves. As he rose back up onto his two feet, Mark smirked, feeling the dark energy surging through his veins as he pinned his eyes back up at the so-called father._

_Donghyuck’s father tripped over his own feet as he tried to scramble away, “What the fuck are you?”_

_“I’m your worst nightmare,” Mark hissed, reaching forward to trail a long fingernail against the man’s cheek, relishing in the way he cowered in fear. “Move away, or I will become your reality for the rest of time.”_

_It barely took a second before Donghyuck’s father began to back even further away, this time towards the door. Hissing, Mark forced the man to scramble out of the door. It was only when the door slammed behind him, letting the room return back to quietness it once held, that Mark shifted back._

_No matter how much he tried though, he could only shift back to his puppy form. With a snort, Mark accepted his fate for the time being. He knew that this was bound to happen at one point or another. He was still too young to fully handle the switch in between each form. No matter how many times he tried it during practice, he could never find the balance._

_Whimpering, he nosed at the bed skirt and peeked underneath it, eyes searching for Donghyuck. Mark found him right where he had last left him, backed all the way up in the corner, his head dropped low into his hands, still trembling._

_Crawling under the bed, Mark nosed at his hands, whimpering. At first Donghyuck shook his head, shying away from his touch. With another whine though, Mark continued to nose at Donghyuck, asking him to look at him. It was only with a couple more nudges and a lick that Donghyuck finally looked up, honey eyes staring back at him._

_Mouth gaping open, Donghyuck was frozen in place. “Are… you the boy from earlier?”_

_Tongue hanging from his mouth, Mark gave him an enthusiastic woof. And Mark felt pretty proud of himself when a tiny giggle fell from Donghyuck’s lips before he reached out to pet his head, scratching him behind his ears too. “I have to be dreaming… there’s no way a boy can turn into a puppy.”_

_Mark gave him a half-hearted woof. ‘But I can! I can turn into other creatures too… once I learn how at least…’_

_“You’re pretty cute and cuddly.” Donghyuck giggled again, this time reaching out with both of his hands to rub at his tummy. “I’m not sure what you did out there, but thank you. Thank you for protecting me…”_

_Closing his eyes, Mark happily allowed Donghyuck to pet him and give him all the tummy rubs in the world. He wasn’t in any place to complain about it. It felt amazing, maybe life as a puppy wouldn’t be so bad after all if he didn’t figure out a way to turn back to normal. Happily snuggling closer to Donghyuck, he sighed._

_He’ll come back tomorrow, he thought, and then the day after that too. He’ll come back every day to scare Donghyuck’s father away and to protect him._

_He was going to protect Donghyuck at all cost._

.

Hand growing numb from where he had been resting his head for a quick nap, Mark opened his eyes blearily, squinting as the fluorescent lights attacked him. With a groan, he leaned back and stretched his arms, feeling the ache from sleeping in such an awkward position even more. One glance at the windows told him that it was very late into the evening. Mindlessly gathering the papers that he had been looking over before his nap, Mark got up from his desk. 

He should really be at home right now. Everyone left hours ago, but as the top scarer in the company, Mark always felt like he had some kind of obligation to stay after hours and clean up, to make sure that everything would be set for the next work day. It wasn’t like he had anything left to go home to anyways; no family, no parents, not even a pet. He used to, but that was the past. All that he had waiting for him was a cold and empty loft high in the sky, where his only companions were the moon and the stars. 

As he rounded around the corner, set to turn off the lights and call it a night, he was surprised to see that a door was still at one of the scare stations. Frowning, Mark began to walk towards it. As he inched closer to it, the more confused he became. He had been around for hours, walking through this area at least once or twice, and he swore that he hadn’t seen the door there before. 

But the thing that confused him even more was the fact that the door was currently in use, the red light on top of the door brightly lit. It was way past work hours, all of the doors should have been stowed away by this point in the night. The front desk had been long closed too, so no one should have been able to get the keycards to access any of the doors either. 

Mark stared at the file laid out haphazardly and messily on the work table. He snatched up the door’s keycard, tossing it in the air a couple times, eyeing it strangely. Then he stared down at the files, eyes skimming across the words. He wasn’t really paying much attention to what he was reading until he stumbled across the words, _status: disastrous_.

Eyes wide, Mark picked up the file and held it in his hands without another thought. Quickly flipping through the pages, he was stunned to see the amount of scarers that had entered the door but was never able to complete the job. There were red marks everywhere, through each scarer’s profile and the words _failed_ was mentioned more than a hundred times across the pages. 

Even the great Lee Taeyong was assigned to the door, but had no luck in completing the task of scaring the door’s occupants to get the desired energy for their world. And Lee Taeyong was the best scarer for centuries, before he came into the company at least. Lee Taeyong failing an assignment? Now, that was unheard of. 

Settling the files back down onto the table, Mark glanced back over at the door. The door didn’t give him any answers to why the occupant inside was so hard to scare. It was a ridiculously plain, white door. It kind of reminded him of his bedroom closet door at home. But that was it, no posters attached to it, no name tag attached to it. It was bare and undecorated. 

He looked around once more, trying to see if anyone was still in the building, who could have been responsible for the door still out on the floor, but he found no one. 

With a sigh, he picked up the keycard once more and stepped over to the door. Swiping the card across the monitor, he tugged the door open. 

It was eerily quiet as he stepped inside and completely pitch black. He could barely see anything in front of him. The room felt strangely cold and the air was stale, it really didn’t seem like anyone even lived in there. Still, Mark opened his mouth to ask, “Is anyone— ?”

Then he felt a warm hand clasped against his mouth, shutting him up. He made a move to pull the hand away from his mouth, but an equally warm body pressed itself right up against him, hissing, “Don’t say a word if you want to get out of here alive. And I don’t know about you but I want to live to see another day too.” 

The human world truly wasn’t at all any different from his own. 

Despite what everyone in his life had to say, Mark found out that the human world was just like his own, a complete replica even. The air was still the same, a little fresher, but the same nevertheless. His skin didn’t melt off of his bones when he entered in like he had once thought when he was a lot younger.. It stayed intact still in fact. There weren’t any rabid, blood thirsty humans attacking him the moment he passed through the door. It was rather peaceful, not a single soul had approached him. The only thing that was different though, was that the human world had Lee Donghyuck and his world didn’t. 

Donghyuck’s world didn’t deserve him either. They didn’t deserve his honeyed eyes and equally sweet voice. They didn’t deserve his sun kissed skin and curly locks. They didn’t deserve the constellations that he carried around on his cheeks and down his neck. They didn’t deserve his big heart and lovely smiles. They didn’t deserve any part of him. 

Mark had thought that when he first met Donghyuck, back when they were younger, and he still thought the same thing now, nearly a decade and half later. 

The longer that he stared at Donghyuck, taking in his bruised and ruined appearance, Mark began to think that maybe the people in his life were right after all. Humans were ruthless— they really were dangerous. He had left Donghyuck only all these years in the hands of these people, unprotected. 

Heart practically ripping to shreds, Mark took another step closer to the once glowing boy. Words barely above a whisper, he mumbled against the palm of his hand, “Donghyuck?” 

The firm hand that had been covering his mouth, keeping him quiet, trembled against his face. Mark watched as tears began to well up in those honey eyes that he had almost forgotten about. “... Mark?” 

Reaching up to hold Donghyuck’s face in the palm of his hands, Mark breathed out shakily and forced his lips to tug into a smile as best as he could. “It’s… been a while hasn’t it?” Gently running his thumb over the hint of a healing bruise on Donghyuck’s cheek, he felt like it was getting harder and harder to breathe as he stared back at the boy before him. 

A sob broke past Donghyuck’s lips and it was painful, but ever so slowly though, the pain ebbed away as it churned into anger, pure rage. He couldn’t believe that the filthy things of Donghyuck’s world, called a _human_ dare hurt Donghyuck like that. But above all things, Mark was mad at himself, absolutely furious that he allowed something like this to happen. How could he _abandon_ Donghyuck like that, when he had promised him that he would protect him with everything that he could. 

“I’m _so_ sorry—,” his voice cracked and his throat burned, but he wasn’t able to finish what he wanted to say when the all too familiar sounds of glass shattering against tiled floors resonated up the stairs. 

Heart lurching into his throat and catching the way that Donghyuck immediately froze up in his arms at the sound, it didn’t take much to put one and one together. Donghyuck’s goddamn father was still in the picture. Even after all that time that bastard was still around and hurting Donghyuck like that. 

As the footsteps began to pound up the stairs, just like it did so many years ago, Mark tugged Donghyuck back into his arms and shuffled him towards the closet. Too frightened to even resist, Donghyuck blindly tumbled along behind him, which Mark was thankful for, because at how loudly those footsteps were becoming, they didn’t have much time left. 

Breathing in deeply, he folded Donghyuck tightly into his arms and tugged him through the closet, shutting the door after they stepped through with a little more force than necessary. 

Even after the door separating him and Donghyuck from the human world and his own closed, his heart was still pounding in his chest. It continued to beat like that for a long time, making it hard for him to catch his breath. 

“Your heart is beating really fast…,” Donghyuck whispered, face still buried in his chest, seeking comfort there. 

Startled, Mark looked down at the head of curly, brown hair, nearly reaching his chin. Even after so many years, Donghyuck was still a smidge shorter than him. Sniffling back a nervous laugh, he gave Donghyuck a soft pat on top of his head. “Sorry, it’s probably not that comforting to listen to.” 

“No, I like it.” Donghyuck argued, hugging him a little tighter when he tried to pull away from the embrace. 

“Okay,” he mumbled before returning the hug with a small squeeze. Looking up from Donghyuck though, he suddenly remembered where they were. 

They were back at the company— back in his world. 

Eyes widening, he began to hustle Donghyuck along. They needed to get out of there as soon as possible. The human world was bad, but his world wasn’t all that good either. If anyone was to catch sight of Donghyuck right now, it would be absolute chaos. Absolute chaos, not to mention a shit ton of paperwork that he really did not want to deal with. 

“Come on, we shouldn’t stick around here for long.” Mark told him. Then taking another quick look over Donghyuck’s body, he frowned. His clothes were all tattered up and ripped around the seams. “I think you’ll want a warm bath too…” 

Donghyuck stared up at him, eyes flickering with a slimmer of warmth that wasn’t there before when he first saw them earlier. Cracked lips curved up into a hint of a smile, he said, “I probably stink don’t I?”

Unable to stop himself from smiling right along with him, Mark laughed, “Well, maybe just a little.” 

.

Mark was thankful that it was already so late, because if it hadn’t been, it would have been so much more difficult to sneak Donghyuck out of there unnoticed. Before heading back to his own place though, he needed to make a quick stop by the security office. While it was good that there was no one there to see him and Donghyuck, the cameras surely caught them, and if anything that was worse. 

With one peek through the window of the door, Mark blessed his lucky stars that the security guard on duty for the night was currently doing his rounds at the moment. 

“Mark?” Donghyuck whispered, eyes roaming over all of the computers and equipment in the room. “Why are we here?” 

“I just need to fix a couple of things before we leave,” he replied as he began to pull up the rolling camera feed and began to delete the most recent one. After he was done, he said, “I’m hoping you’re in the mood for a little sprint too.” 

“Me? Running? You have got to be joking.” Donghyuck gaped at him. 

It lit a small flame within him as he heard the sarcasm seeping through Donghyuck’s words. Mark was glad that Donghyuck was still the same Donghyuck before he left him. It still amazed him that after everything that Donghyuck had gone through, he was still able to crack jokes and smile from time to time like that, even if they were forced. 

“Yup, because I’m going to disable the recording to give us exactly three minutes to get out of here before the guard on the night shift will notice that something is wrong and come chasing after us.” Mark nodded as he continued to delete the camera footage that had them in their feed. “I may be the top scarer in the company, but that doesn’t mean I’m able to get away with everything.” 

Clicking one final button, Mark pushed away from the desk and grabbed Donghyuck’s hands. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

.

Donghyuck slumped against his body tiredly as they entered his apartment. “I hate running…” 

Shoulders shaking as he attempted to keep his laughter at bay, he apologized, “Yeah, I know, you don’t. Sorry about that.” 

“If I didn’t stink earlier, I definitely do now.” Donghyuck bemoaned, pulling at the way his shirt was clinging to his sweaty skin. 

“It’s alright, I probably do now too,” he laughed, equally out of breath and tired from the mini marathon they just did. 

The longer that they stood there in the middle of the hallway of his apartment, Mark came to realize how truly _tired_ Donghyuck was. During that whole time, Donghyuck had plastered on a smile, but Mark knew better than to believe that there was any happiness behind it. Donghyuck’s smiles hardly ever reached his eyes, completely hollow, no matter how wide he tried to smile. There had been a few times that he had been able to catch a hint of a true smile on Donghyuck’s face, but it was rare, although it made him cherish them all the more. 

Now that they were out of that wretched human world, he believed that maybe, just maybe Donghyuck would be able to truly smile. Mark honestly didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of this idea before, bringing Donghyuck into his world— no matter how much he wasn’t welcomed here— it would have saved Donghyuck from all the hurt and pain he had gone through. 

But one step at time though, baby steps.

First thing that Donghyuck needed was definitely a warm bath and proper clothes. The younger boy was worse for wear and as the minutes stretched on, Donghyuck looked like he was about to fall asleep standing up. 

As his eyes fluttered close, Mark hastily reached out to steady him, “Whoa, okay, you can’t sleep yet, Donghyuck. We need to get you cleaned up.” 

“But I’m sleepy…,” Donghyuck mumbled back at him, eyes barely open as he slumped back into Mark’s shoulder, all stinkiness and sweat forgotten. 

“Yeah, I know.” Mark hummed as he began to walk the half-awake boy towards the bathroom. “You can sleep right after, promise.” 

“You don’t keep a lot of promises, Mark…” 

His steps faltered. Sucking in a deep breath, he looked down at Donghyuck, finding him already gazing back up at him through half-lidded eyes, probably too far gone to even realize what he was actually saying. But that didn’t mean that Donghyuck’s words stung any less, because it was true. 

Mark had promised Donghyuck that he would protect him, no matter what. He promised that he would take care of him, that he would save him from the cursed world that he was born into. He promised that Donghyuck could count on him for anything he needed, whether it be a friend that he could confine in or a warm shoulder to lean on. In the end though, all that he was able to give were nothing but a series of broken promises. 

An apology was already there on the tip of tongue, but Mark bit it back. He knew that an apology wasn’t what Donghyuck wanted, not even a hundred of them. So instead, he pulled Donghyuck a little closer, wrapping his arms around him a little tighter, and swallowed the tears that burned in the back of his throat. 

Once they reached the bathroom, he carefully sat Donghyuck down on the edge of the tub. After turning on the water, and adjusting it to the right temperature to fill it up, he said, “I’m going to get us some new clothes and towels. The bath should be ready by then. If you want to leave your dirty clothes in the corner, I’ll throw them away for you later.” 

Fully intent on leaving to get the stuff they needed and to return as soon as he could, Mark spun on his heels, ready to head towards the door. He barely took a step out when Donghyuck’s hand shot out to grab onto his wrist, nails digging almost painfully into his skin, “Wait! Don’t leave me!” All of the sleepiness that had clouded Donghyuck’s vision over was gone in an instant. Instead warm, honey eyes pierced through his very soul, wide and wet. 

Mark didn’t believe that it was possible for his heart to crack and break that many times in a day, but he figured that when it came to Donghyuck, anything was possible. 

Taking both of Donghyuck’s hands into his own, he knelt before him, whispering softly, “Hey, _hey_ , I’m not going anywhere far, okay?” Running his thumbs over his bruised and busted knuckles, Mark added, trying to reassure him, “I’m just going to my bedroom. It’s right next door. It’ll only take a second.”

When he tried to loosen the death-tight grip Donghyuck had on his hands, Donghyuck shook his head furiously, holding on even tighter, so much that Mark was pretty sure that he was losing circulation in them. It was only after a particularly hard tug that Mark was finally able to free his hand, but Donghyuck was already scrambling after them to hold them again. Before Donghyuck could hold them again though, Mark had already managed to occupy them, cupping Donghyuck’s face in his hands instead. 

Leaning in close, so close that their noses were almost touching, he smiled at Donghyuck. Words tender and warm against Donghyuck’s lips, he said, “Only a second, maybe a couple seconds actually. But it won’t be long, I promise.” 

Lips wobbling, eyes grower wetter with each passing second, Donghyuck choked out, “You suck at promises, Mark.” 

“I know,” he hummed, pressing their foreheads together, “but that was before. Give me a chance, Donghyuck. Give me a chance to show you, to _prove_ , that I can keep promises now…” 

Before Donghyuck could even argue, Mark brushed his lips across Donghyuck’s forehead and stood up. Taking full advantage of Donghyuck’s momentary shock, he high tailed out of the room and into his own bedroom. He tore open his closet and grabbed the nearest stack of towels that he could find, before digging through his drawers for clothes. He simply pulled out the first thing that his hand touched, not bothering to check or care if the tops and bottoms matched or not. 

Once he had everything in his arms, he all but ran back to the bathroom, praying that Donghyuck hadn't bursted out into tears yet, because Mark knew for a fact that he was not equipped to handle a crying boy. He knew that it was bound to happen, but he hoped that he could take a breather and get Donghyuck at least settled in first before that would happen. 

Thankfully, when he stepped back into the bathroom, Donghyuck’s eyes were still fairly dry, for the most part. Unlike how he had left him, Donghyuck was now sitting in the middle of the steadily filling bathtub, his torn and dirty clothes in a heap by the door. 

Dropping the towels and clothes onto the counter, he dipped a hand into the bath water. “Is the water okay? It’s not too hot is it?” 

Donghyuck had his knees drawn up to his chest, his chin resting on top of them as he stared at the water. “No, it’s fine.” 

“If you don’t like it,” Mark began as he reached for the bubble bath he had sitting on the side, “just tell me.” 

Letting the water in the tub fill up a little more, Mark twisted the cap off of the bubble bath and poured it into the water, before reaching down to swirl it together. He watched as Donghyuck lifted one of his hands up, staring intently at the bubble suds coating his arm. “I like it…” 

Mark smiled. “It smells pretty nice, doesn’t it?” 

Donghyuck nodded. “It does.” 

“I don’t really use it much though, so you can use it as much as you want,” he added before shutting off the water. Seeing that Donghyuck was a lot more calmer than before, he stood up and walked over to the counter to retrieve another bottle of shampoo and body wash. 

“Are you going to take a bath too?” Donghyuck asked. From where he was standing, Mark could see Donghyuck’s face in the mirror, his eyes catching a hold of his own. 

“Nah, I’m more of a shower person.” Mark explained, holding eye contact with him through the mirror. “I’ll take one after you’re finished.” 

“Oh, I thought you were going to join me.” 

He blanched, cheeks burning red, Mark spun around on his heels to face the younger boy, an estranged, _“What?”_ left his gaping mouth. 

“What?” Donghyuck echoed, head tilting to the side as if he didn’t understand why Mark was so flustered. After a couple minutes of complete silence though, it seemed like Donghyuck’s brain finally caught up with the words that left his mouth, allowing a matching, pretty blush to spread across his cheeks. “Please forget that I said that!” 

Unable to stop himself from laughing out loud at the absurdity of the entire situation, Mark clutched his stomach in pain. “There is no way in hell I’m going to forget what just happened.” 

“Delete. Erase. Rewind.” Donghyuck cried out, hands flying out from under the water and forming an _‘x’_ in front of his body, as if he could reverse what had happened. 

Shaking his head, Mark took one more look at the very embarrassed boy in his bathtub and simply thought to hell with it as he tugged his shirt over his head. “I mean I guess it would make sense right?” 

“You don’t have too— !” Donghyuck shouted, but he stopped near the end when Mark simply slid into the warm waters, smiling widely at him after stripping from his clothes.

“Too late now.” Mark beamed at him. 

When he caught sight of the blush intensifying, burning a vibrant red now on Donghyuck’s cheeks, he took mercy on him and tried to distract him by pouring a decent amount of shampoo onto his curly locks. As he raked his fingers through those curly locks, nails barely scratching at Donghyuck’s scalp, Mark breathed out a sigh of relief at the same time that Donghyuck did. Seeing that all the tension that Donghyuck had built up was finally ebbing away, Mark continued on with his little ministrations as he washed Donghyuck’s hair. 

Compared to the last time that he saw Donghyuck, Donghyuck’s hair was so much longer now. In his younger years, despite how unruly and uneven the cut was, Donghyuck always had shorter hair, chopped right at his ears, never any longer. Now though, as he combed his fingers through them, paying extra attention to any potential knots in the way, Mark saw that it was long enough for it to be pulled into a small ponytail almost, a man bun actually. 

With the mental image on his mind, Mark attempted to recreate it with all the shampoo and bubbles in Donghyuck hair. He sniffled a chuckle when he managed to get some of Donghyuck’s hair to stand up on its own, making Donghyuck look at him strangely, but it was cute nevertheless. 

Keeping mum, he moved on to clean and wash away all the grime on Donghyuck’s face. At the feeling of his fingers on his face, Donghyuck closed his eyes at the touch. As wiped away all the dirt and dried blood off his face, Donghyuck sat there unmoving, almost as if he had fallen asleep. Donghyuck didn’t even flinch when his fingers danced over a light purple spot along his jawline, the telltale signs of bruising. His heart clenched as he looked at all the cuts and scratches marring Donghyuck’s beautiful skin, cutting violently across the constellations on his face, then all the way down the rest of his body where the bubbles hid them from view. 

Trailing his fingers down the nape of Donghyuck’s neck, Mark pulled him close, close enough for him to press his lips against his temple once again. Mark bit back a sob as he felt the warm skin beneath his lips. Swallowing back the burn as best as he could, he moved to kiss Donghyuck on the nose, then on both of his cheeks.

“I’ll protect you from now on. I promise.” Mark whispered, voice barely above a whisper, but full of conviction. “I won’t break it this time. I’ll protect you even if it _kills_ me.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Stay healthy, happy, and safe everyone! <3
> 
> Per usual, kudos and comments are always appreciated~ See you all soon (since I can't seem to go too long without posting a new fic lmaooo) 
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/markeuhyuckie/status/1239041276454076417?s=20) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/markeuhyuckie)


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